Review: Transformers - War for Cybertron Siege: Episode 6

Will the robots zombies defeat the Autobots?  Will Optimus be able to reach the Allspark?  Will Bumblebee, Arcee and Cog escape from Soundblaster with their stolen energon?  Will they even survive with their lives intact?

It was cliffhanger city at the end of the last episode, so let's jump straight in.

The Autobots do indeed take some damage from the robot zombies, the so-called "Sparkless" and their seemingly unmotivated attack; while Optimus focuses on the Allspark, which is tantalisingly out of reach. No, wait, it's actually within reach, and just considerably smaller than it appears.  Moonracer (AKA Sergeant RedShirt) makes the ultimate sacrifice for the cause.  Optimus reaches the Allspark, and his contact with it causes all the Sparkless to disintegrate to dust.  Too easy, much too easy.

Impactor, Sideswipe and team have to protect the spacebridge from the Decepticon seekers.  Will they make it?

And will Bumblebee's heist succeed, or will Soundblaster's army of mercenaries get them?  Well, Cog is fast enough and accurate enough to take out Soundblaster's troops, while they suffer from Stormtrooper Syndrome and collectively fail to hit the heroes once.  Bumblebee gets another vision from the Alpha Trion protocols and is inconveniently incapacitated while they try to make their getaway.  No problem, Arcee pulls him out of the driving seat of the escape vehicle (because they can't transform into vehicles of their own, obviously) and sets off at speed.

This massively convoluted plan might just work.  The Ark, fully charged up with the energon that Bumblebee stole, flies to the Spacebridge.  I've given up trying to understand what's going on here, except that maybe they're going to rescue the team that was fixing it?  The spacebridge activates just in time, while Elita-1 (who, I'm sorry, but she permanently sounds like she's complaining) 

Optimus delays the inevitable Decepticon attack, while he and Megatron have a philosophical debate.  Optimus is going to destroy Cybertron; Megatron is going to enslave it.  Megatron steals the Allspark from Optimus; Bumblebee immediately steals it back.  The Decepticons mount their attack (they have a recurring problem with their shooting accuracy which is laughable, when they even remember to fire their weapons) and it takes the arrival of Omega Supreme to help the Autobots launch the Allspark into the Spacebridge, and get the Ark off the planet.  Elita-1 (still complaining) says she must stay behind to protect the launch of the Ark, while Omega Supreme seems to be doing a perfectly good job of that himself, towering over the Decepticons.  The Ark also has a wide range of weapons which have been sitting idle all through the series, and which are also fully capable of keeping the Decepticons at bay.

So:  Optimus throws the Allspark into the Spacebridge, and then the Autobots (including Optimus) fly the Ark into the Spacebridge, abandoning Cybertron to the Decepticons, and a fraction of the Autobots (including Elita 1, Chromia, Red Alert and Jetfire).

This was a chaotic and strange episode:  it did draw all the previous storylines together and make them work together, but it had some very strange gaps in it:

- Why didn't the Autobots take the Allspark with them in the Ark?  Why launch it separately?  Flinging it into the spacebridge and then flying after it in the Ark makes as much sense as firing a bullet up (or throwing a ball) into the air, and then trying to run and catch it, instead of just carrying it with you and running.  It made no sense.

- The Decepticon virus incapacitated all Autobot systems but didn't damage the Autobots themselves?  And didn't affect the Ark?

- The Sparkless robot zombies?  Why, oh why?

Overall, I have to say that I did enjoy this series.  The visuals were as good, or even better, than any other visualisation of the Transformers that we've seen - with the exception of the Bumblebee movie.  The characterisations were good, although I'd have given Elita-1 slightly more personality other than cynical pessimistic moaner.  Megatron was very well written, and actually derives sympathy for his cause (compared to Ultra Magnus who was such an optimist that he thought he could go and speak with Megatron and expect to leave Decepticon HQ alive, and instead ended up helping Megatron's plans).

The new series starts on 30 December, which is a few days away from now (hence I'm writing this in readiness for the new episodes).  The final episode here ends with Teletraan 1 detecting an alien space vessel.  Opinions are divided in our household, between either Earth space vessels, or the Decepticon Nemesis.  Hopefully it'll be more than meets the eye.